Spring fever can unsettle anyone and my old neighbour Ed from Saskatchewan was suffering from it last week. Ed claimed that spring fever was an infection of the weather. One day it seems like winter has moved on and then it turns around and comes back a day or two later. Hopes rise and fall in the yearly struggle between nasty and nice temperatures. Nasty means snow and frost. Nice means warmth enough to sprout blossoms and growth in the winter dead rhubarb patch. It is the time of year folks are hungry for all the warm weather that they can get.
“As a farmer, you can never have too much good weather or money any season of the year,” my old neighbour said. I agreed it often seems that way to all of us. Is it true the good weather and the money we have make us want to have more of each? Not so long ago almost everyone wanted to win the $1.6 billion Powerball Lottery. When a couple made it public they had won a great portion of the prize they announced they were going to continue to live in their modest home and keep their jobs. They planned to show up for work as if winning a huge amount of money had not happened to them. I wonder if that is still the case.
Many agree you can never have too much money or good weather. Do lots of money and good weather make us happier and more thankful? Ed believes happiness is overrated and most folks cannot decide if they are happy or not. When it comes to thankfulness, my old neighbour thinks it has been replaced with thoughts of entitlement. Everyone is entitled to the best of anything and everything they want. Is that why people feel unhappy when they are stuck with less than the best? If folks cannot have all that they want, can they still be thankful or happy?
Farmers spend good weather in doing what needs to be done — seeding, fertilizing, spraying, haying and harvesting. Good weather is too important to waste. Money is needed to be spent on seed, chemicals, fertilizer and equipment like balers, tractors, combines and such. No matter how much good weather or money a farmer has, the challenge is using them wisely. Happiness and thankfulness are not often found in having missed the opportunities that good weather and money offer.
Getting and having can become the fever that rages through our lives. We cannot hold on to good weather, as it is a gift that cannot be controlled by us. The money we have is not ours alone, but also for sharing with others in need. When we die, our treasures do not go with us to the grave. We bring nothing into this world but our naked selves. We take nothing out of this world in death. We may spend our lives devoted to making and increasing our money, but ultimately our death means we cannot keep it. Our money is meant to serve God by way of helping others in need. Dare we be self-indulgent and say we have not seen anyone hungry, thirsty, destitute, sick or imprisoned or a stranger who needed our help?
